{"id":7880,"date":"2025-06-16T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=7880"},"modified":"2025-06-16T11:26:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:26:43","slug":"i-am-about-to-do-a-new-thing-by-arok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=7880","title":{"rendered":"“I Am About to do a New Thing,” by ALOK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
ALOK\u00a0(they\/them) is a poet, comedian, public speaker, and actor. ALOK\u2019s literary works \u201cBeyond the Gender Binary,\u201d \u201cFemme in Public,\u201d and \u201cYour Wound, My Garden,\u201d have garnered global recognition.\u00a0

Middle Church recently invited ALOK to deliver a sermon in honor of Trans Day of Visibility.
It includes a poem called “I’m About to Do a New Thing.”

You can watch it\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Middle Church<\/a> (the Middle Collegiate Church) is a United Church of Christ church located at 112 Second Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. This is how they describe their vision:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Vision<\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Middle Church is a multicultural, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Spirit and justice, powered by fierce, revolutionary Love, with room for all. Following in the Way of Jesus\u2019 radical love, and inspired by the prophets, Middle Church is called by God to do a bold new thing on the earth. We aim to heal souls and the world by dismantling racist, classist, sexist, ethnocentrist, ableist, cisheterosexist and other systems of oppression.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because our God is still speaking in many languages, we work in interreligious partnerships to uproot injustice, eradicate poverty, care for the brokenhearted, nurture our planet, and build the Reign of God on earth. This activism is fueled by our faith; our faith is expressed in art; our art is an active prayer connecting us with the Holy Spirit. Middle Church affirms the transformative power of moral imagination, reclaiming and reframing Christianity inside our walls, on the street, and in virtual spaces around the globe. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALOK\u00a0(they\/them) is a poet, comedian, public speaker, and actor. ALOK\u2019s literary works \u201cBeyond the Gender Binary,\u201d \u201cFemme in Public,\u201d and \u201cYour Wound, My Garden,\u201d have garnered global recognition.\u00a0 Middle Church recently invited ALOK to deliver a sermon in honor of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-message"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9rLvf-236","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7880"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7886,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions\/7886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}